


Face Value

by bedegraine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-26
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 22:27:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedegraine/pseuds/bedegraine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a while he figures it out, the reasoning for their blind eyes; he's spent so long shutting everyone out (his father, for his father's safety; Scott, in an effort to minimize Scott's weaknesses; Lydia, because if he lets her become real he loses the goddess that he worships and gains nothing but more pain), so long shutting everyone out that they have learned to look him over. He is face value and nothing more. So if he tells his father he's fine, he must really be fine. If he doesn't see Scott for days and weeks at a time, he must only be busy. If his affections for Lydia wane, he must just be regrouping for the next stage of the fifteen year plan. And everyone else? They didn't care so much for him in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face Value

It takes a while for the hardness to steal him over.

The warmth drains from him slowly, almost entirely unnoticed, and he's not sure his friends' ignorance isn't his own fault. After a while he figures it out, the reasoning for their blind eyes; he's spent so long shutting everyone out (his father, for his father's safety; Scott, in an effort to minimize Scott's weaknesses; Lydia, because if he lets her become real he loses the goddess that he worships and gains nothing but more pain), so long shutting everyone out that they have learned to look him over. He is face value and nothing more. So if he tells his father he's fine, he must really be fine. If he doesn't see Scott for days and weeks at a time, he must only be busy. If his affections for Lydia wane, he must just be regrouping for the next stage of the fifteen year plan. And everyone else? They didn't care so much for him in the first place. 

At first he's tired. Tired of battles and complications and werewolves and death. Tired of loving a girl who loves someone else and tired of loving a best friend who doesn't tell him anything anymore, who has too much going on and too little time to share his knowledge. He watches with a sort of half-feigned interest from the sidelines as Jackson and Lydia take up their old flame, as Allison struggles to find herself again, as Scott finds a new ally, or something more (something Stiles could never be, at least not for Scott) in Isaac. At first he's only tired. It takes a while for the anger to come. 

But it does come. It comes without outlet and without scapegoat. He's angry in the worst way, in the way that permeates and sinks to his bones, in the way that usually comes just before or just after a panic attack. Except the panic never comes. It's only anger. Anger, because he is the only puzzle piece that doesn't fit. He is the only one left without something to fight for (because no matter how hard he tries, he can't keep pretending it's Lydia; she can't be his anchor to normalcy anymore, she can't be his escape method). He is the only one left without allies. It burns in the way his best friend is slipping away, and it burns in the way he hasn't heard from Derek's pack since the night Gerard didn't die. 

He's scheduled for regular guidance appointments after that, but Ms. Morrell only shows up for about half of them. When she does, he feels strangely like she's prepping him for something. Like she's trying to mold him into a tool or a weapon. But she never divulges any information. This makes him angrier. 

And after the anger comes the resolution. 

It's his fear and his bone-weariness and his anger compacted, his sadness turned cold and weaponized, and it comes up much quicker than anyone suspects. 

He's putting his father in danger merely by existing. He's alone and uninformed. He's weak. But not anymore. He abandons this character as he abandons his reclusiveness. He's irrevocably entwined in the shitshow that is Beacon Hills' nightlife, so he will stand and join the fight. 

The good thing about being taken at face value is that if he convinces everyone he isn't terrified, isn't useless, isn't fragile, it will become true. 

So while Lydia and Jackson may be what they are, and Scott and Isaac may be what they may be, and Derek's pack is fighting a war he knows nothing about and Ms. Morrell quotes great leaders at him every Wednesday, he will do what he has to do to become a warrior. He will become the hardness that has stolen over him.


End file.
